In this interview, Marcelino Oreja, President of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences since 2009, gives his views on the value of supranationalism and the fundamental role of the European Commission in preventing institutional paralysis within the European Union (EU). He also discusses Economic and Monetary Union and the question of the economic governance of the EU and the importance of the co-decision procedure particularly as developed through the Treaty of Lisbon, which he believes upholds the main principles of the Constitutional Treaty. Finally, he refers to the methods that need to be implemented to encourage participative democracy and promote the right of initiative.